A good shoeing

Sunday May 15th   An agriculturally themed mail box...

Crossing the North Platte..

In fact the Pony Express follows along the south side of the North Platte from here all the way to Casper, a distance of around 150 miles. But it is largely across private land, and I was also headed for a farrier outside the town of Torrington on the north side.

 

A flooded feedlot which gives an idea of the amount of rain that has been falling.. 

 Don't think that was supposed to be a pond in the middle, though I may be wrong.

After six seeks of travel and around 600 miles covered, the horses were due to have a new set of shoes. Happily the vet at Scott's Bluff recommended experienced farrier Mike Sussex near Torrington, and he managed to fit me into his busy schedule at short notice.  I particularly wanted tungsten carbide applied to the shoes, and Mike had a supply at the ready.  Used extensively by the Amish and Mennonites, the advantage of tungsten carbide is that it not only improves the grip of the shoes on the road, but more importantly for me it can also considerably prolong their life, doubling or tripling the distance I could travel before a new set.  Mike was going to apply drill tech, which consists of tungsten carbide particles in a copper or brass matrix, though Lady has previously had spots of borium applied to her shoes. For more detail on drill tech and borium see the following link.
Mike applying drill tech to the shoes in his well equipped farriery workshop while Lady and Mo patiently wait their turn to be shod...

 Mike invited me to stay overnight, and wife Michelle laid on a superb supper and breakfast ..

Very fortunate, as it set me up for a miserable wet tramp along Highway 26 the following day, spray from the semis whooshing past just adding to soaking from the incessant rain.  

 It may have been a wet but at least not a long day, as Stephanie Goulart of the local division of the NPEA had sorted out a paddock for the horses at the Pony Soldier RV Park about twelve miles away and just down the road from where they live. They also brought a rug over for Mo who is more susceptible to the cold and wet than Lady, and invited me to supper. Here I am with Tony and Stephanie Goulart and daughters, after being revived with a shower and good meal ...

Julie and Tom who own the RV Park, and let me kip in the laundry room out of the rain...